Leading figures in technology development and sustainability issues have been lined-up for the German Choco Tec 2018 event taking place in Cologne, Germany.

The ZDS congress, which is held every two years, will be hosted in Cologne between 3-5 December, attracting more than 300 participants from 19 countries, from all sectors of the chocolate industry.

This year’s event aims to live up to its motto “Inspiration, Information, Innovation” which will feature innovative topics and top-class speakers. The topics for 2018 include technical topics including prevention of fat bloom, mass customisation with chocolate, as well as the latest findings on cocoa contamination and automated remote maintenance concepts.

Sustainability in cocoa cultivation is certainly an important issue for the industry, and on the first day of the seminars, Dr Howard Shapiro, global director of plant science and external research at Mars and author of numerous books on chocolate, will speak in his presentation “How science can deliver sustainable cocoa”.

Ed Seguine of the Guittard Chocolate Company and chairman of the Cocoa of Excellence Technical Committee, among others, will take visitors on a journey to the “Diversity and Beauty of Taste” in his lecture “Cocoa – The Beauty of its Diversity”, which will be accompanied by a series of chocolate samples from the 2017 edition of the Cocoa of Excellence programme.

On the second day of the event, the programme will illuminate the technologies behind chocolate production. Dr. Gottfried Ziegleder, an expert in the field of chocolate technology, will give a lecture on fat bloom as a challenge for theory and practice. He holds a doctorate in food technology, was professor for crystallisation at the Technical University of Munich and chocolate technology at the University of Applied Sciences, HSWT Weihenstephan and is a long-standing member of the ChocoTec organising committee.

Further speakers and current information on Choco Tec can also be found on the Choco Tec congress website: www.choco-tec.com/en/